Airbus Could Ground All Its A380s For Weeks for Wing Repairs

Airbus's fleet of A380s has been beleaguered by problems with cracks in their wings since January. Now, the company has announced that they could all be grounded for up to eight weeks in order to repair the problems.

The BBC reports that Airbus is on record as explaining that, if it grounds all the planes at once for repair, they'll be out of action for around two months. However, there is still a chance that the repairs will be made step-by-step, with each plane taking a longer break during regular maintenance checks in the coming months.

The fix requires Airbus replace 23 wing ribs currently made of type-7449 aluminium with thicker ones made of a more robust type 7010 aluminum. In total, the repairs will present 30,000 hours of labor.

So far, Airbus has spent £193 million on the problem. Ironically, that figure looks set to rise and rise—unlike the planes. [BBC]